Christmas Bags

“So in my family instead of wrapping Christmas presents in wrapping paper or newspaper, we put them in cloth bags that we reuse every year, and we save all the old tags so every Christmas you can look back and have a reminder of the presents from the years before that have been put in that same bag”

The informant says this ritual was initially a way for her family to be more environmentally friendly, but as the years have gone on it becomes a fun game every Christmas morning to guess what was in the bag the year before based on the note. The informant’s parents always write personal notes with each gift, so there’s a dual sense of excitement and fun in opening a new gift while communally trying to guess what the gift was there the year before.